Sarai at 12, Yonkers Apartment, Yonkers, NY, December 23, 1995. (Donald Earl Collins).

My sister Sarai Adar Washington died on this date four years ago, Sunday morning, July 11, ’10. If she had lived, she would be 31 years, five months and two days today. I miss her, of course. I know she’s better off in the sweet by-and-by, that living with such a permanent, unyielding and relentless terminal disease like sickle-cell anemia wasn’t a real alternative in the intermediate run.

Still, I do wonder what life could’ve been like for Sarai if she hadn’t had to live with this dreadful genetic illness. Things like whether she had experienced the joys of sex and relationships, of falling in love and having a person with which to share her love and life. Or if Sarai would’ve gone on to college after high school, as there would’ve been a reason for her to do so, to keep living her life as fully as she could. Maybe, once she did decide to move out and live with a group of friends in Alabama, she would’ve stayed there working, dating, having the best of times on her own.

There’s really nothing more to say. Sarai’s gone, and though I wish we’d been closer in age and thus closer as brother and sister, and she’d been a healthy person, it was what it was. So, for one moment on this day, let me say, once again. Sarai, I love you, and miss you very much.